DOCSLIB.ORG

St. Augustine's Epistemology and the Education Process | 139

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
St. Augustine's Epistemology and the Education Process | 139 St. Augustine's epistemology and the education process | 139 ST. AUGUSTINE'S EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE EDUCATION PROCESS Abstract St. Augustine's epistemology can be seen in his doctrine of divine illumination, where he distinguishes knowledge got through the senses, inferior reason, and superior reason. Augustine was interested in education and he was a teacher very interested in how learners get the best knowledge from the teaching and learning process. He held that love of God, expressed through love of neighbour was to be the bedrock of the teacher-pupil relationship, but he did not clearly state the bridge or connecting link between the teaching and learning process. So, through critical analysis. This essay intends to explore Augustine's divine illumination theory as the missing link between teaching and learning. It employs the method of exposition and critical analysis. Keywords: St. Augustine, Epistemology, Basis, Teaching, Learning, Divine Illumination Introduction History has it that Aurelius Augustine, popularly known as Saint Augustine or Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, was born in A.D. 354 at Thagaste, in North Africa. Thagaste was a town forty-five miles south of Hippo in the Roman province of Numidia, which is the current Algeria. Augustine's father was Patricius (a pagan), and his mother was Monica (a Christian). Through his mother's persistence in pressuring Augustine to become a Christian, Augustine ended up becoming a Christian, and through his writings a rich intellectual 140 | Ekpoma Review, Volume. 5 No. 1., 2019 foundation of Christianity was established in the West. Augustine became enthused about philosophy through his reading of Cicero's Hortensius, when he went to Carthage for further studies in his late teens. Then he taught rhetoric in Carthage and later in Rome and Milan. As a thinker, Augustine was more of a restless seeker than a systematic thinker. He restlessly sought to unravel the problem of evil, which may be said to have characterized his intellectual and moral struggle in life. This restless search brought Augustine to romance briefly with the dualistic philosophy of Manichaeanism, and then dived headlong into the Neoplatonic philosophy of Plotinus. To bring a solution to his struggle with the problem of evil, Augustine synthesized the ideas of Neoplatonists with Christianity; upholding the teachings of the Bible but equally realizing that broad education was needed to maintain these teachings in the intellectual and political climate of his time.1 For Augustine, the ultimate purpose for education is turning towards God, because in his analysis for the presence of evil, Augustine notes that evil is not a being but human exercise of the free will in rejecting God Who is the Ultimate Good.2 Augustine believes that education helps save humans from the self destructive path of rejecting God in human's exercise of the free will, and he dedicated himself to delivering a good number of teaching and learning aid to facilitate the education of humans. This point is presented by Raymond Canning thus: Augustine of Hippo offers a rich resource for philosophical, theological and pastoral reflection on teaching and learning. Already in December 386, four months or more before his baptism, he had proposed, in On Order 2,7,24-19,51, a program for education in the liberal arts, the object of which was the vision of beauty, the vision of God. Shortly afterwards, in his Soliloquies, he had explored the epistemological foundations of such a program, focusing on the highest of the liberal arts, i.e., philosophy, the subject matter of which for him was God and the soul. Then, in the late 380s, in the St. Augustine's epistemology and the education process | 141 dialogue with his son, Adeodatus, called The Teacher, he developed an accompanying theory of language and interpretation, a theory that would be further worked out and applied in his classic treatment of the interpretation of Scripture in On Christian Doctrine dating from the mid to late 390s. It is not surprising, therefore, that in 415-418 as he explores different mental analogies in his work, On the Trinity, he should draw attention also to the amor studentium, i.e., “the sort of love... that the studious have, that is people who do not yet know but still desire to know some branch of learning.... The more... the thing is known without being fully known, the more does the intelligence desire to know what remains.... The object of our inquiry is what it is that [someone] loves in that which he is studious to know.”3 Augustine placed education within the realm of the search for love, and indicates that education comes through the instrumentality of teaching and learning. Through teaching, the phenomenon to be known is exposed, while through learning, the exposed phenomenon is grasped. But a close consideration of the elements of teaching and learning in Augustine's philosophy of education may leave one asking: “Are the elements of teaching and learning in Augustine's philosophy of education parallel to themselves or do they have a point of convergence?” This paper argues that there is a point of convergence for the elements: teaching and learning, in Augustine's philosophy of education, and that point of convergence lies in Augustine's epistemology. But before digging deep into this, let us consider two philosophical trends that influenced Augustine. Platonic and Aristotelian Influence on Augustine Augustine is ordinarily considered to be a Platonist, and he even made allusion to the strong influence of Neoplatonism on him thus: “In the regular course of study I came upon the book of a certain 142 | Ekpoma Review, Volume. 5 No. 1., 2019 Cicero... that book of his contained an exhortation to philosophy. It was called Hortensius. In fact that book changed my mental attitude, and changed the character of my prayers to Thyself, O Lord.”4 Augustine held firmly to Neoplatonism and was pleasantly surprised by its unexpected agreement with Christian doctrine: Therein I read, not, indeed, in these very words, but quite the same thing, supported by means of many and manifold reasons, that: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Furthermore, I read that the soul of man, though it gives testimony of the light, is not itself the light, but the Word, God Himself, is the true light, that enlightens every man who comes into the world.... Again, I read there that the Word, God, was born not of the flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of flesh, but of God.5 Neoplatonism offered Augustine the soft landing he needed to accept the Christian faith, yet retain his pagan literary culture. So Augustine belongs to the Platonic school of thought, but Robert C. Trundle notes that “Augustine is normally associated with Plato's essentialism rather than Aristotle's 'organismic' empiricism. But... both Aristotle and Plato presented paradigm metaphysical options. And an open-minded reading of Augustine's philosophical theology belies some mediation between them.”6 The metaphysics of Plato was attractive, especially to a thinker like Augustine, for the fact that it made a distinction between two realities together with a soul that knew eternal ideas, just as the Scripture made a distinction between unchanging spiritual reality and a changing corporeal reality. Yet, Plato's metaphysics loses its attractiveness in the face of the claim in the New Testament that all things will pass away, and that includes knowledge, leaving only Love (agape) that will endure forever. Also, the New Testament teaching of the resurrection of the body, which is ultimately connected to Love, cannot find a place in Platonism which regards the body as a 'dark' receptacle, obscuring St. Augustine's epistemology and the education process | 143 the cognitive 'light' of the soul. For these difficulties with Plato's metaphysics, an alternative is found in Aristotle's metaphysics, based on the fact that: ...it is easier for the later Greeks as well as for Augustine to embrace an Aristotelian paradigm in which the mind, without recourse to a pre-existing soul, distinguished immutable universal ideas from mutable objects. For one thing, this was a simpler thesis. For another, this thesis would give an omniscient God some possible role in illuminating such objects. Further, these objects qua unities of form and matter implied a unity of body and soul. Though the later implied the death of soul and body alike, it rendered a personal resurrection viable and significant. [But].... the significance of the resurrection was tainted by an Aristotelian view of a single reality that, while involving a cosmological principle of causation, proceeded ad infinitium into the past. Besides an infinite past conflicting with creatio ex nihilo, it further anchored in otherwise transcendent God in a single reality.7 Having pin-pointed the attractive and unattractive metaphysical options of Platonism and Aristotelianism, Tundle submits that “it is reasonable to suppose that Augustine limitedly embraced both. The Platonic ontology of two realities explained the transcendence of God as well as both an inferiority of corporeal reality and sin-laden human condition;”8 which reveals the inherent fault in human knowledge and self deception in wanting to use just only human knowledge to solve moral and political problems, while doing away with God. The Aristotelian epistemology explained the merciful immanence of God, despite its fruitless pursuits of godless utopias. It acknowledges the ordered and rationality at play in the world, and these tended towards empiricism, yet the medium of articulating them cannot solely be limited to bodily senses. This is in close 144 | Ekpoma Review, Volume. 5 No. 1., 2019 association with Augustine's claim in the On Free Choice of the Will, that persons “are forced to admit that the order and truth of numbers have nothing to do with the bodily senses;”9 a claim that is not meant to mean that the real mathematical ideas are to be found in another 'real world of ideas' but that mathematical ideas cannot just be merely explained out on the base of a materialist account of perception.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • EDUA 7200 A01 — PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba Department of Educational Administration, Foundations, and Psychology
    EDUA 7200 A01 — PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba Department of Educational Administration, Foundations, and Psychology PROFESSOR: Dr. David G. Creamer, S.J. Office: Room 124, St. Paul’s College Phone: 474-9141 Fax: 474-7613 E-Mail: [email protected] I am normally available before class on Thursday. Full office hours are posted on my door. Feel free to just drop by or arrange for an appointment. If I am not in the office, Gladys Broesky (474- 9165) — Jesuit Centre (room 118) — will be happy to set something up. (Gladys is here Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday — 8:30 am-4:30 pm.) COURSE TIME & LOCATION: Fall Session: Thursday evenings: 5:30–8:30 pm (R5) — St. Paul’s College, Room 123 (by Library, lowest level). COURSE OBJECTIVE: To introduce students to major movements, thinkers, issues and debates in Philosophy (Foundations) of Education. The focus question for this course is “What are the nature and aims of education?” The question will be addressed from a variety of and the thinkers I have selected for study represent both the diversity and unifying themes of the field. Readings will be drawn from Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Ignatius Loyola, John Amos Comenius, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Bernard Lonergan. TEXTBOOKS 1. Because of the variety of readings on the philosophy of education drawn from ancient and modern sources, no single textbook is appropriate for the course. A bound compilation of the readings from Plato, aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Ignatius Loyola, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft is available from the Jesuit Centre ($20.00).
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy of Science and Educational Research: Strategies for Scientific Effectiveness and Improvement of the Education
    Philosophy of Science and Educational Research: Strategies for Scientific Effectiveness and Improvement of the Education Omar a. Poncea, José Gómez Galánb and Nellie Pagán-Maldonadoc a Professor (Metropolitan University, AGMUS, Puerto Rico-United States). [email protected] b Research Professor and Director of CICIDE (Metropolitan University, AGMUS, Puerto Rico-United States & Catholic University of Avila, Spain). [email protected] & [email protected] c Professor (Metropolitan University, AGMUS, Puerto Rico-United States). [email protected] Abstract This article is a theoretical study on the effectiveness of educational research in the context of philosophy of science. This topic of discussion, in the area of educational research, has been the subject of intellectual debate and arises again at the beginning of the 21st century. This article outlines the challenges and opportunities for scientific effectiveness facing educational research if it aspires to contribute to the ideal of an education of excellence and quality. Nine strategies to improve scientific effectiveness in educational research are identified and discussed. As a conclusion, it is argued that the foundations of contemporary educational research need to be revisited and reformulated, parallel to the new concepts present in the philosophy of science, to face the new problems present in our society*. Keywords: Educational Research; Philosophy of Science; Scientific Knowledge; Scientific Effectiveness; Education. 1. Introduction Philosophical thinking centered on science has been an object of intense debate for centuries. Thus, when we speak today of philosophy of science, we refer fundamentally to any reflection produced around the scientific methodology and its results. It faces, from the point of view of reason, the nature of science and the philosophical problems generated around it, with a direct implication in its results and applications.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy of Education
    Philosophy of Education Introduction to the Topic What is a philosophy of education, and why should it be important to you? Behind every school and every teacher is a set of related beliefs--a philosophy of education--that influences what and how students are taught. A philosophy of education represents answers to questions about the purpose of schooling, a teacher's role, and what should be taught and by what methods. How do teacher-centered philosophies of education differ from student-centered philosophies of education? Teacher-centered philosophies tend to be more authoritarian and conservative, and emphasize the values and knowledge that have survived through time. The major teacher- centered philosophies of education are essentialism and perennialism. Student-centered philosophies are more focused on individual needs, contemporary relevance, and preparing students for a changing future. School is seen as an institution that works with youth to improve society or help students realize their individuality. Progressivism, social reconstructionism, and existentialism place the learner at the center of the educational process: Students and teachers work together on determining what should be learned and how best to learn it. What are some major philosophies of education in the United States toda y? Essentialism focuses on teaching the essential elements of academic and moral knowledge. Essentialists urge that schools get back to the basics; they believe in a strong core curriculum and high academic standards. Perennialism focuses on the universal truths that have withstood the test of time. Perennialists urge that students read the Great Books and develop their understanding of the philosophical concepts that underlie human knowledge.
    [Show full text]
  • Pragmatism and Progressivism in the Educational Thought and Practices of Booker T
    PRAGMATISM AND PROGRESSIVISM IN THE EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT AND PRACTICES OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Ronald E. Chennault DePaul University Few men, particularly Black men, have wielded the power and influence of Booker T. Washington during his lifetime. A good deal of his colorful life is recounted in his autobiography, Up from Slavery.1 Here Washington details the most notable events of his life, from the time he spent in slavery as a youth, to his exploits and education during his adolescence, and well into his career as head of the then-Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama. Washington tells of his experiences at present-day Hampton University and the extraordinary influence the lessons he learned and the people he met there had on his life philosophy. He also reserves a large part of his story to describe numerous occasions during which he spread his institution’s seeds of success and offered his advice on improving America’s race relations. Yet as revealing as his account is, both by reading its lines and between its lines, Washington’s autobiography represents only a piece of his life’s puzzle. If Washington is the “trickster” that Harlan imagines and McElroy argues,2 a fairer and fuller understanding of Washington’s wizardry necessitates moving beyond his autobiography. Restricting our understanding of Washington to his self-representation in Up from Slavery (even extending to his photographic self-representation)3 and allowing his account to epitomize his worldview does more than “oversimplify Washington . it further contributes to the uncritical acceptance of Washington’s propagandistic portrayal of Tuskegee’s goals, programs, and accomplishments.”4 Many gaps in his life story can be filled by consulting primary sources such as Washington’s writings and speeches as well as by looking to extensive biographical and numerous scholarly works on Washington.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy of Education and the Growing Impact of Empirical Research*)
    1 Jürgen Oelkers *) Philosophy of Education and the Growing Impact of Empirical Research 1. Point of Departure: The Triumphant Success of Empiricism Empirical research methods have been used in education since the end of the 19th century. Initially experimental methods taken from psychological laboratories of the time were used and quickly also complemented with applied statistics methods which were popularized in American educational science first and foremost by Edward Thorndike. These procedures made it possible to study large test series of students who before had been outside the horizon of education. Field observations were also developed, making it possible to study concrete phenomena in children's play or in adolescents' behavior. The pioneer of this current of research was the psychologist G. Stanley Hall. This international research had undisputed advantages and was also supported politically or by teacher unions. Indeed, demands of the public or relevant groups of stakeholders influenced the behavior of educational science. This in turn brought with it another advantage: Philosophical abstractions had to be avoided as did classification into opposing philosophical camps or approaches. Theoretically speaking, there are no "isms" in empirical research which did not require long-term devotees, but rather merely topics and methods. The topics are practice-oriented and the methods are just as transparent as they are demanding, requiring instruction and constant training. Findings of early empirical research also seemed to actually have an immediate benefit. The famous learning curve from memory research gained admission to the classroom as did the intelligence test and achievement measurements and also contemporary management methods designed to ensure an efficient school organization.
    [Show full text]
  • The Education of the Categorical Imperative
    Stud Philos Educ (2006) 25:385–402 DOI 10.1007/s11217-006-9006-2 The education of the categorical imperative James Scott Johnston Received: 20 October 2005 / Accepted: 6 June 2006 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006 Abstract In this article, I examine anew the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant and its contributions to educational theory. I make four claims. First, that Kant should be read as having the Categorical Imperative develop out of subjective maxims. Second, that moral self-perfection is the aim of moral education. Third, that moral self-perfection develops by children habituating the results of their moral maxims in scenarios and cases. Fourth, that character and culture, Kant’s highest aims for humanity, are the ultimate beneficiaries of this process. Keywords Kant Æ Moral education Æ Categorical Imperative Æ Self-perfection Æ Pedagogy Æ Character Decades have passed since Immanuel Kant has figured prominently in the dis- cipline of philosophy of education as practiced in the English-speaking world. To my mind the last article-length, sympathetic exposition of Kant’s contribution to the philosophy of education was Donald Butler’s Idealism in Education, and this was published in 1966. This state of affairs continues, despite the many criticisms of Kant extant in the disciplinary literature and the presence of much new scholarship on Kant, particularly in the areas of ethics, politics, and anthropology. German scholarship on Kant has long had Traugott Weisskopf’s Immanuel Kant und die Pa¨dagogik (1970) and more recently, Ju¨ rgen-Eckhardt Pleines’s edited volume, Kant und die Pa¨dagogik: Pa¨dagogik und Practische Philosophie (1999).
    [Show full text]
  • Educational Futures’
    Rethinking and innovating education in the pandemic? Philosophy of Education at the forefront of ‘Educational Futures’ Philosophy of Education We are living in precarious times. Covid-19 has affected all of our existence, including education and educational futures. Covid-19 has altered and changed the way we interact with the basic premise of education that we have understood in more or less the same ways for a substantial amount of time: the place and space where the education takes place; the educational foundations that were clearly linked with the physical structure of the school and schooling; and the idea of the teacher – who is the person who delivers and facilitates education; and who is the learner. Now, all of this has essentially changed. As such, Covid-19 has made us completely rethink the foundations of education. It has changed the way we are living, the ways in which we are thinking about education, and most particularly the ways in which we are considering what education is and what educational futures should look like. From the outset, this thought piece is foregrounded by three thinkers – philosophers, from different eras, times and countries. The first is Aristotle, with his statement that “the educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead”. The second is John Dewey, who argued that “education is not preparation for life; education is life itself”. And the third is Nelson Mandela, with his statement that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Philosophy of Education, Schools and Students Much work has been devoted to thinking about the world post-COVID-19.
    [Show full text]
  • Christian Philosophy of Education Requirement
    Christian Philosophy of Education Requirement One core value of ACSI is to have teachers who are equipped to integrate Scripture, model Christlike values, and be prepared to answer students’ questions from a solid foundation of scriptural principles. Teachers bring the truth of God’s Word into the study of all subject areas and help students find their way in a world that seems confusing or even conflicting at times. Some teachers have the added responsibility of helping to shape curriculum, guide students with loving discipline, and lead them to a saving knowledge of Jesus. For all these reasons, teachers need to understand students and the place of faith in Christian education as well as how to integrate biblical truth into the overall curriculum planning and daily instruction. One way to accomplish that is to read, study, and develop a Christian Philosophy of Education (CPoE). The new checklist for CPoE has met several goals: • Biblical integration has been added. • Fewer books are required. • There is more use of video. • Reading selections on biblical integration are more practical. • The book list has been updated; some have a 2016 publication date. • The task has been divided so that it is very easy to see a way to complete half in each of two years. • The entire requirement is now due at the end of the third year of teaching. • Demonstration of learning is now done through a paper and actual lessons taught. • Guidelines for the paper are provided—for the writer and the reviewer. Teachers new to their schools are not expected to obtain an ACSI certificate the first year.
    [Show full text]
  • St. Augustine As an Educator
    St. Augustine as an Educator DONALD ELCOAT ST. AUGUSTINE lived in an age not unlike our own in many ways. Just as we have seen the eclipse of the old colonial powers of the West, so he saw the might of Rome crumble before the onslaughts of Goth and Vandal. Like ours, his was an age in which old values were being questioned and new solutions tried. Despite one or two blind spots from which he suffered, it is no exaggeration to say that, in every subject to which he turned his mind, he out-thought his contemporaries. He devastated the pagans in his critique of the old classical ideals. He gave no quarter in his attacks on humanistic thinking in the church. Like all great thinkers, he was at the same time a child of his age, yet standing outside and above his generation in his grasp of eternal truth. His influence upon Western thought has been incalculable. In his teaching on the church and the sacraments, he is looked upon as a Father of the Roman Catholic Church. In his doctrines of Man and Grace he inspired the Protestant Reformers. His philosophical writings still exert a lively influence and his educational views played a formative role in the grammar school and university systems of the West long after the middle ages had waned. Indeed a prominent twentieth-century educationist once remarked that all educational philosophies fell into two classes, which could be typified by St. Augus­ tine and Rousseau respectively.1 To those readers who know only the Augustine of The Confessions or The City of God or who have heard rumours of his harsh treatment of Pelagius, it may come as a surprise to learn, not only that he was one of the greatest teachers the Christian Church has ever produced, but that the principle of his teaching was 'love'.
    [Show full text]
  • Islamic Philosophy of Education
    International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 2 No. 19 [Special Issue – October 2012] Islamic Philosophy of Education Dr. Sobhi Rayan Senior Lecturer Department of Education Alqasemi Academy College Baka AL-qarbiyh, Israel. Abstract In this article, I intend to present and analysis the concept of Islamic education of philosophy. Islamic perspective for human being and life constitute in harmony and conciliation between sense, mind and religious faith as fundamental epistemological origins, while thinking and considering are instruments to research in these origins. So, Islamic education encourages critical thinking as a research method for development of knowledge and science, but science in itself has a functional role to make human life better, this science constitutes on ethical dimension. Therefore, thinking is considered a duty in the Islamic view, because thinking is a tool for progress life that conditioned in achieving values in the realty. Introduction The philosophy of Islamic education is looking at the principles and concepts underlying education in Islam, it is analyzing and criticizing, deconstructing and disintegrating of the existing educational infrastructure and strives to produce new concepts continuously or displays what should be the concepts. In this sense it is philosophy that beyond what is existing constantly toward absolute values, and is working in the space of Islamic knowledge and who is humane and moral essence. The Islamic Education is seeking to achieve the distinct role of the human being which is reform and construction of human life. This Islamic concept of life based on the fundamental concepts as individual, society and the world, and education works to find a balanced relationship and equitable between the parties to this equation which are based on a relationship characterized by a mutual and integration, so one party cannot survive without the other parties.
    [Show full text]
  • Prospective Teachers' Educational Beliefs and Their Views About the Principles of Critical Pedagogy
    Journal of Education and Learning; Vol. 6, No. 4; 2017 ISSN 1927-5250 E-ISSN 1927-5269 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education Prospective Teachers’ Educational Beliefs and Their Views about the Principles of Critical Pedagogy Çağlar Kaya1 & Sinem Kaya1 1 Faculty of Education, Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Muğla, Turkey Correspondence: Çağlar Kaya, Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Faculty of Education, Muğla, Turkey. E-mail: [email protected] Received: May 19, 2017 Accepted: June 11, 2017 Online Published: July 5, 2017 doi:10.5539/jel.v6n4p181 URL: http://doi.org/10.5539/jel.v6n4p181 Abstract The main idea behind this research is to determine prospective teachers’ educational beliefs and their views about critical pedagogy. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to analyze the relationship between prospective teachers’ educational beliefs and their views about critical pedagogy. In this study, “Educational Beliefs Scale” is used with the “Principals of Critical Pedagogy Scale”. Based on the Educational Beliefs Scale, five theories on educational philosophy including: Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism, Reconstructionism, and Existentialism are examined. Besides Education System, Functions of School and the Emancipator School dimensions of the Principals of Critical Pedagogy Scale are analyzed. The research is conducted as a survey model study. The sample of the research comprises of 452 last grade undergraduate students from the different departments of Faculty of Education in Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. Descriptive statistics and Pearson Product Momentum Correlation was applied to the data. Keywords: educational beliefs, principles of critical pedagogy, prospective teachers 1. Introduction Philosophical perspectives and background of an education system may be open to discussion for all times.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy of Education an Islamic Perspective
    10 Philosophy and Progress Philosophy and Progress: Vols. LI-LII, January-June, July-December, 2012 education and even those who have obtained degrees and claim ISSN 1607-2278 (Print), DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/pp.v51i1-2.17676 to have acquired knowledge have not, in most cases, understood the spirit either of Islam or of education. The present paper is a humble endeavour to explain education from Islamic perspective based mainly on Al-Qur’an and Sunnah as has been understood by the writer and put forward some personal views on the topic. Before we start exploring what is education from Islamic PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION point of view or what is the nature of Islamic philosophy of education we may try to say few words about the meaning of AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE the expression ‘Philosophy of Education’ as understood by Western philosophers. Educational philosophers from the time Qazi Nusrat Sultana* of Plato wanted to have clear views about the purpose of education and the values which should govern it. Sir Richard Livingstone, in his book Education for a World Adrift (1943), “Read, in the name of thy Lord, and Cherisher, .... And thy talked about “standards; a philosophy of life; a principle by Lord is Most Bountiful. He who taught the use of pen, taught which to judge and rule it; a formula or formulas to integrate man that which he knew not.”1 our civilization, our new order; some knowledge of the 3 This was the first instruction that came to Prophet ‘science of good and evil’’ Through these words, it seems, he Muhammad from Allah.
    [Show full text]